AC Milan are busy making a global spectacle of themselves as the season nears its end.
The once-great institution is being dressed up and packaged to tempt potential major investors — from Thailand and China, principally — in the hope that somebody and their multi-millions will be attracted by the rossoneri’s seven European Cups and undoubted prestige.
Milan, or at least a portion of the club, are for sale. The trouble is, they are a flawed product.
At the San Siro stadium, the home the club rent and share with co-tenants Inter Milan, the team have been making the wrong sort of spectacle of themselves, with performances that make a valuation of €1.2 billion (Dh4.1bn) — the tag the president Silvio Berlusconi is believed to have tied to the club — seem like anything but a snip.
The ambience is not helping, either.
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Milan’s latest home match featured a carefully rehearsed piece of choreography from fans, who lined up in the grandstand so that they formed the letters, in a human mosaic, of the word “Basta” – “Enough”.
The supporters have had enough of many things, but mainly of steady decline, of a squad who will spend a second successive season outside the Uefa Champions League, will not be playing European competitions at all for another campaign, and may not even finish in the top half of a Serie A they won four years ago.
Milan face Roma on Saturday looking to scrabble up from a lowly 11th place in the table.
It looks almost inevitable Berlusconi and his executives, headed by his daughter Barbara and his long-term vice-president Adriano Galliani, will soon have had enough of Filippo Inzaghi as head coach, too.
“He looks as if he has aged,” said Rino Gattuso, the former Milan midfielder and long-term teammate of Inzaghi’s in more successful Milan sides than the present one.
The role call of possible successors stretches wide, with Sevilla’s Unai Emery apparently admired and his case made all the stronger by his club’s handsome 3-0 win in the first leg of his team’s Europa League semi-final against Fiorentina on Thursday.
Porto’s Julen Lopetegui’s name has also been mentioned, as have those of Fiorentina’s Vicenzo Montella, and Roberto Donadoni, who has been done no favours by relegated Parma’s financial crisis, but has a factor that appeals to Berlusconi: as a player Donadoni was a Milan great.
Two club greats — Clarence Seedorf preceded Inzaghi — have been tried in the 18 months since the departure of Max Allegri, who has just guided Juventus to the Italian title.
But the task to infuse a listless, unbalanced squad with the gumption that characterised the Milan teams they played in has been beyond both Seedorf and Inzaghi.
Now finding a new, pedigree head coach — given the uncertainties over the club’s ownership and the limitations of a squad that patently needs overhauling — may be complicated.
A newcomer would be concerned to have a say in shaping a summer transfer strategy that needs to be more coherent than it has been over the past few market windows.
Of the incoming players of the past 12 months, only goalkeeper Diego Lopez, signed from Real Madrid, can be deemed an unqualified success, whereas striker Jeremy Menez has had his moments of skill but has also had moments he would rather forget.
Menez’s red card in the 3-1 defeat against Genoa, the fixture when the fans sent their Basta message, means he is suspended for the visit of his old club, Roma.
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